Learning Resource for research students in management

1. Absenteeism
in the
workplace
Jayadeva de Silva

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1. Absenteeism
The word absence in any organization means the employee being not available in
the place of work for few hours, one or few days. Such absences fall in to the following
categories by obtaining.
 Short leave
 . Entitled leave
Casual leave
Vacation/Annual leave
Sick leave
Lieu leave
Maternity leave
Paternity leave
 Study/duty leave
 Accident leave
 No pay leave
 Unauthorized leave
For the purpose of this study absenteeism is taken as the practice of keeping away
from work frequently, in a manner that disrupts the normal functions of the office. This
includes those who stay away from work without prior approval (unauthorized, no pay leave
and leave in excess of entitlement.
If excessive absenteeism is to be reduced to the minimum it is necessary to find
out the causes. It is also very relevant to examine how absenteeism affects any institute and
its overall impact even to the country on the whole. Hence absenteeism has to be viewed both
from organizational level as well as national level.
1.1 How Absenteeism Affects Enterprises
Enterprises depend on its employees to perform the required tasks, according to
the annual plan in order to maximize profits, provide a service to customers, to supply goods
according to the demand etc. Each job has the job description and individual employees have
their list of duties which is organized in such a way to fulfill the organizational objectives.
However in practice there are many reasons for not achieving the organizational objectives.
These include break down of machinery, delays in supplies, financial difficulties, and
administrative barriers and last but not the least, absenteeism. Employee’s absence on the
factory floor or office invariably has connection with the output of the organization.
The direct effect is disrupting of the work schedule of the individual. The planned
work of the employee will suffer. As a result there can be delays in other connected work
Even if another employee is detailed for that work the efficiency and the quality may not be
the same. Sometimes this may lead to excess overtime which ends up in additional expenses
for the organization. The direct and indirect costs of absenteeism can be listed as:
 Other employees have extra work load or a new supporting person
 Training the replacement
 Staff morale suffers
 Overtime payments will increase

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 Wage cost of the new employee
 Staff time is wasted making alternate arrangements
 Time used for controlling and maintain required records.
The more drastic indirect effect could be the continuous neglect of absenteeism
which may lead to a persistent problem where the image of the organization will suffer.
Hence absenteeism hinders manpower planning, could lead to industrial relations
problems, and interferes or may even bring about a breakdown in the running of an
organization.
In order take action to reduce or prevent this misfortune that affects many
organizations in Sri Lanka it is opportune to find out the major causes of absenteeism
2. Causes of Absenteeism
Absenteeism is a universal problem. The reasons for absenteeism can be of
diverse nature depending on the country, organization or even different departments in the
same institute. Sometimes these causes may affect absenteeism in a variety of manner
depending on the conditions, work situations, times and the individual employees. This
shows how complex absenteeism is and the importance of examining the reasons specifically
for a particular organization and even at the different levels of employees.
Renesis Linkert in his book “New Patterns of Management” has stated that
absence like all other types of ‘end result variables’ (e.g. productivity, factory accidents,
turnover etc.), is in fact related to the Management System of the organization.
Dorothy Abeywickrama has listed a series of possible correlates analyzed under
four broad categories, namely, job and plant factors, economic factors, social and cultural
factors and psychological factors. She has explained these categories in detail with special
reference to Sri Lanka, in her book Employee Counseling and Absenteeism. Some of the
positive correlated factors are as follows
2.1. Job and Plant Factors
Lack of industrial aptitude; majority of workers who came from agrarian
sector with little or no technical education.
Casual Intake; When absentees are substituted with casuals over long
periods a core group of absentees are created.
Ex-post facto leave approval; Although the HR policy is that all leave
(except sick and accident) should be availed of after approval this does not
happen in practice.
Overtime work; Heavy overtime work could result in excessive fatigue
which ends up in taking rest .

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Reprimanding; Reprimanding although results in higher absenteeism
according to research, once combined with counseling can create a negative
correlation on absenteeism.
Scope for small entrepreneurship; When some employees have other
business ventures in addition to their regular employment in order to meet the
demand of the business they get absent from work.
2.2 Economic factors
Transport costs; as transport costs rise absenteeism increases employees
decide to stay home after ‘so many day’s attendance, as thereafter it is not
economical to go for work as transport costs exceed the possible pay cut.
Indebtedness; Among the poorer class this is so acute it leads to
absenteeism. It is a case of not being able to face the creditors who are located
near the office.
2.3 Social cultural factors
Location of the establishment; workers from distant
hometowns are prospective bad absentees.
Seasons; Many employees from rural farming backgrounds keep away
from work during harvesting time. During other festive periods like New Year,
Wesak and Christmas too this occurs.
Alcoholism; They form part of the core absentee group
Spouse employed overseas; Lone parent has to look after young children
and absenteeism occurs,
Peer group Influence; This play an important role in
absenteeism
2.4 Psychological Factors;
Lack of Interest in work; Due to various reasons the employee can be
dissatisfied, de-motivated or frustrated which could result avoiding workplace.
The employees, who keep away from office, can be categorized into 4 major
groups according to the publication “Human Talents Management” by Jayadeva de Silva
(2000). Those are as follows:
 The bored absentee;
Work is not interesting or challenging for the employee.
Such employee tends to keep away from work just before holidays or
just after holidays.
 The immature absentee;
The employee fells a day off is a fringe benefit and does
not think about the consequences of his absence. Often influenced by
others and does not take work seriously.

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 The frustrated absentee;
This employee gets habitually absent in order to relieve the
frustration due to work pressure or other factors.
 The avenging absentee;
The person feels victimized or taken advantage of and
perceives that he is subjected to injustice, discrimination in the work
place.
According to www.benefits.org/interface/cost/absent the following are the
possible causes;
 Serious accidents, illnesses
 Low morale of the employee
 Poor working conditions
 Boredom on the job
 Lack of job satisfaction
 Inadequate leadership on the part of the supervisor
 Personal problems(financial, marital, child care)
 Poor physical fitness
 Inadequate nutrition
 Transport problems
 No financial loss to the employee
 Stress and heavy work load
2.5 Reduction of Absenteeism by Introducing Incentives.
It is necessary to find out whether these causes for absenteeism could be
Compensated with incentives.
Absenteeism is a major measure of employee morale according to Gene Levine.
(www.genelevine.com) It is also stated that absenteeism rate above 5% is very serious and
3% is the standard goal of any industry. If it is left unchecked high absenteeism can lead to
very serious problems including morale issues and turnover.
No. of lost working days due to absence
Absenteeism rate = ------------------------------------------------- X 100
No. of employees X No. of work days
(Total possible man days)
It is seen from research in this field that the cost of absenteeism is greater than the direct
payment of wages and benefits paid during absence. Further it is also necessary to consider
indirect cost of staffing, scheduling, retraining cost, diminished morale, turnover and
opportunity cost involved in absenteeism. Indirect costs exceed the direct costs of
absenteeism which does not include recognized holidays, approved leave, vacations, and
allowed absences (www.benefits.org/interface/cost/absent)

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In order to combat absenteeism research suggests providing incentives in an appropriate
manner.(www.employer-employee.com/absent). It is stated that giving incentives for reduced
absenteeism is not as same as rewarding or giving employee bonuses for reduced
absenteeism. An incentive provides an employee with a boost to their motivation to avoid
unnecessary absenteeism. It helps an employee to decide to go to work and not stay at home.
The following are suggested:
 En-cash unused sick leave at the end of the quarter/year.
 Two hours of bonus pay for every month of perfect attendance.
 Offer buffet lunch, certificate of achievement, scratch off card
concealing prizes for perfect attendance
 Giving phone cards for perfect attendance.
It is also important to make sure that the incentive scheme is unique to the
organization.
According to Joseph J Martocchio, Timothy A judge believes that some organizations
try to identify the employees whose absence is higher than the levels sanctioned by the
organizational policy. But it is difficult to detect involuntary/voluntary absenteeism as no
separate records are kept.
It has to be understood that the incentives should match the objective. Appropriately
chosen incentives can be more cost effective than many realize (Paris Micheal 2002). Such
incentives can reduce absenteeism and excessive turnover.
According to a study done by Jay S Kim and Anthony S Compagna of Ohio
University flexi time programme appears to permit employees to reduce their use of unpaid
absences. This is also a possible scheme in Sri Lanka with appropriate adjustments not to
disrupt the work in the Institute.
Judith Brown suggest that telecommuting is a very effective incentive to combat
absenteeism. The underlying concept is moving the work to the worker instead of moving
worker to work.. There can be community centers equipped with computers, fax machines
etc close to workers, so that the work can be sent along electronic highway. This may be
implemented in countries where technology has reached a very high level. In Sri Lanka this
is yet a dream!
In the Sri Lankan context not much of research is available on this subject Dorothy
Abeywickrama (Employee Counselling and Absenteeism, 2001,p 40) in her research study of
15 establishments from each of private and public sector in Sri Lanka found the following:
“Also the prevalence of a system of counseling bad attendance workers showed a
moderately inverse relationship with absenteeism and this was reinforced by the
findings from the attitudinal responses where over 64% responded for the
suggestion”
It shows that employee counseling may be effective in controlling absenteeism.
However it is to be further studied whether this will be the same for all employee categories

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Further in this study she has found that work incentive schemes which were in
operation had not worked successfully and that absenteeism was higher in these Institutes.
Therefore she suggests a model for chronic absentees a good attendance prize scheme for
good attendance combined with a prize disqualification certificates as a negative reinforce.
Counselling scheme is also to be strengthened with the option of rewarding with cancellation
of such disqualification certificates when their attendance improves.
It appears that it would be better to have attendance related incentives in order to get
the employee to the work place regularly and to have strict performance targets to achieve
goals rather than work incentives.
Literature could not be traced on absenteeism at different levels of employees or how
the incentives affect such categories.
It is seen how incentives can motivate people to do what you want them to do.
Consumer promotions that use incentives are good examples. Hence properly designed
incentive schemes should be able reduce absenteeism It may also be important to see whether
these causes are the same for different categories of employees. The incentives may be
proposed depending on the category of employees.
Bibliography
Abeywickrama, Dorothy, Employee Counselling and Absenteeism, Ceylon
TobaccoCompany, 2001
De Silva Jayadeva, M.U. .Human Talents Management, 2000
Kim Jay, S and Campagna Anthony S, Effects of Flexi time on Employee
Attendance and Performance: A field Experiment, Academy of Management
Journal1981, vol 24, No 4 (www.orgstudies.org/any/abstract)
Levine, Gene. www.genelevine.com/papers/27
Martocchio, Joseph, J, and Judge a, Timothy. Dispositional Influences on
Attribution Concerning Absenteeism, Journal of Management, Nov- Dec
1996.(Online edition)
Michael, Paris, Make Incentives Match Objectives, Manufacturing
Engineering, April 2002 (Online Edition)

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Renk, Karen, The Power of Incentive Programme: The Right Incentive
Programme can Motivate Ordinary People to do Extraordinary Things, H R
Magazine ,Sept 2004 (Online edition)
www.benefits.org/interface/cost/absent
www.careerjournaleurope.com
www.employer-employee.com/absent